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Wardmist
Wardmist (Evocation, Alteration, Enchantment/ Charm) Range: Special Components: V, S, M Duration: Permanent Casting Time: 1 hour Area of Effect: Special Saving Throw: Special This spell requires the use of an amount of silver larger in total volume than the caster’s fist. Other material components are phase spider silk and three powdered pieces of amber of no less than 500 gp value each. (All the spell components are destroyed in the casting of the spell.) The caster must stand in an area that will become part of the ward and visualize the route of the desired ward boundary. An area of 600 square feet per level of the caster may be enclosed. If the wizard tries to enclose too large an area, the spell fails and is wasted. Mages casting simultaneous wardmists may combine their protections. The spell creates a wardmist. This is a 40-foot-high, 60-foot-wide band of permanent mist that must rest on the ground, floor, or other solid surface (it need not be level). The area protected by the ward is measured from the inner edge of the wardmist; the thickness of the mist is not included. The ward extends 40 feet beneath the surface of the ground, and may be narrower than 60 feet in width wherever desired. Its boundaries can twist and turn corners as sharply and as often as desired to protect a certain area, and they may exclude whatever areas the caster desires. Once cast, a wardmist can’t be moved. A wardmist can always be freely entered or left. Beings entering it are sensed by the spell, which reacts by flashing a radiant or audible warning (or both, as desired) to a specific spot or being. The spot or being is set upon casting and it cannot be changed thereafter. Such a warning would still function in the location of a destroyed room or inside the tomb of a dead being. Warnings classify those who enter the wardmist into two categories: those who bear ward tokens, and intruders. Wardmist warnings transmit numbers and general locations of all intruders. Sight and all known magical and psionic means of scrying won’t work through the boundaries of a wardmist. A being in the mist can see through the mist to a distance of about 10 feet in darkness, and 40 feet when light is present. One cannot see out of the mist though, even if one is only inches away from its edge. One cannot see out of the mist to either the area it excludes or the area it encloses. A wardmist can be seen over freely by anyone tall enough or stationed high enough to be able to do so. Wardmist Guardian Monsters d8 Number & Type Monsters 1 2d6 baneguards* 2. 1d3 blazing bones† 3. 2d8 bonebats* 4 3d4 helmed horrors* 5 3d4 skeletons or 2d4 monster skeletons (MC1) 6 1d2 watchghosts‡ 7 1d2 wraiths (MC1) 8 2d12 zombies (MC1) Monsters marked with an asterisk (*) appear in the revised FORGOTTEN REALMS® Campaign Set box. Those marked with a dagger (†) appear in the Ruins of Myth Drannor boxed set. A diesis (‡) denotes those in the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set. Those appearing in the MONSTROUS COMPENDIUM® volumes have the volume number appended to the abbreviation “MC.” DMs lacking a particular source should substitute another monster from the list. When visibility is reduced by darkness, intruders in a wardmist who don’t use lamps, markers, or other means of proceeding in a straight path will move in a random direction each round of movement in which they fail a secret Intelligence check. It is possible to wander, lost, in a wardmist for quite some time. While in a wardmist, intruders are subject to attack from guardian monsters linked to the spell during casting if the intruders fail a saving throw vs. spell. Guardians are teleported to within 20 feet of an intruder. Guardian monsters are kept in stasis by the wardmist when not active. They become inactive again 2d4 rounds after an intruder is slain or leaves the warded area. Guardians may be magically healed at any time by the application of potions or spells. If a guardian monster is slain, though, it’s gone forever and can’t be resurrected or replaced by the wardmist spell. Only the types of magically created or undead monsters listed in the boxed text on the previous page can be linked to a wardmist. In some rare cases, a wardmist may contain more powerful guardians. For example, one powerful known wardmist contains a lich accompanied by two or more skeletons augmented by a imbue with spell ability spell that enables them to cast magic missile, lightning bolt, and other combat spells. These skeletons are robed and hooded as if they were mages, and behave as such. They even speak to intruders in cryptic challenges using magic mouth spells. Their task is to reveal and neutralize any priests who intrude into the ward, so that the lich can act freely to deal with other intruders. (This particular set of guardians is linked to the ward around the Talonmist Towers, a haunted castle northwest of Westbridge in the foothills north of Kryptgarden Forest. The castle is the seat of an evil family of sorcerers, the Talonmists.) word is uttered. The material, the rune, and the word are all set during the ward’s casting, and they cannot be changed thereafter. For convenience, tokens to a particular ward are usually of a common shape and size, but the wardmist will recognize anything of the right material that bears the right rune. In some large holdings, warders carry rings of varying tokens just as they do rings of keys. Tokens can be made freely after the casting of a wardmist —but the requirements for a valid token can’t be changed without using another wardmist spell. A being bearing a valid token can’t see or be affected by a wardmist, and isn’t subject to attacks by any guardian monsters linked to the wardmist. An intruder who seizes a valid token from another being, even while in battle with a guardian, will be instantly free of such guardian monster attacks. Only one wardmist spell can exist in a given area. If a dispel magic is cast on a wardmist, it increases visibility around the caster by 20 feet, delays the appearance of any guardian monsters by a round, and sets off an immediate warning. Only a limited wish or wish can destroy a wardmist. Even repeated dispel magics will fail, and an anti-magic shell cannot form within a wardmist. If this is attempted, the anti-magic shell is wasted, and the wardmist is unaffected. A wardmist doesn’t seem to exist for The most common addition to a a being who carries the proper token. wardmist is a band of armed human Ward tokens must be made of a cer- guards assigned to respond to the tain material, and they must bear a magic’s warnings. Spell triggers are certain rune, drawn while a secret also popular; these are spells that have 228 specific preset conditions to set them The common use of wardings off. They then launch the effects of began in the North, probably in other “hanging” spells, also cast earlier. ancient Netheril. The most ancient A good example of a spell trigger wards are found in tombs, in storage attached to a wardmist is one set in areas under ruins, or in deep glades the back pantry window of a certain in the various forests of the North. private home in Everlund. If a being These ancient wards often have without a ward token tries to get in through the window, they’ll suffer the effects of an 8d6 lightning bolt that springs from it. A paper strip has been stretched across the inside of the window frame. If it is torn, a second lightning bolt of the same strength leaps out through the frame. Elminster warns that similar wards are used all over the Realms, especially by the more powerful wizards and priests, and that Volo has encountered only a very few of them. mythal-like magical alterations. These include wild magic effects and prohibitions against magical items. In the latter case, magical items simply can’t enter the wardmist. Some of the later wards from the ancient period included prohibitions against spells of a specific school or type, such as those involving heat, fire, or lightning. There are also rare instances of gigantic blade barrier- like magics that encompass an entire wardmist around a castle or temple. Category:Evocation spells Category:7th level sorcerer and wizard spells